Kneeling, I took stock of the worst-looking wolf. Luckily, it seemed that it hadn’t been downed by the severity of its wounds, albeit they were rather ghastly, but due to the fact that its legs were wounded and unable to carry it further. But flesh wounds were relatively easy to handle with my blood runes - damage to internal organs or bones would be harder. Ignoring the growling coming from the wolf, I drew upon my own power, quickly writing the necessary runes around the wound and channelling magic to fix it to the point that the wolf was out of danger. As the magic worked, the wolf gave of a surprised sounding whimper, which I also ignored, focusing to keep the magic expenditure as small as possible and the Ice that tainted my Astral Power out of its wounds.

The first wolf handled, I quickly made my way to the other downed wolves, stabilising them as well, before orienting myself and taking in the surroundings. The wolves around us looked all quite similar to Ylva before she had crossed the first Divide, their grey pelts almost shining in the silvery moonlight. One of the wolves, currently standing next to Ylva, was just as tall as she was and had a similar aura of primal power, making me realise that it, too, had crossed the first Divide. But I also noticed that it was bleeding, badly, and looked about ready to keel over, only stubbornness keeping it on its paws.

We were here to help them, even if they seemed to be at a loss how to deal with us. When I approached the big wolf, it growled at me, but so weak that it only strengthened my resolve.

“Patients should be quiet.” I growled back, not in the mood to argue.

Its muzzle came up, as if it was about to bite and without thinking, I simply slapped it straight on the nose, not hard enough to truly harm but hard enough to get my point across. There was a strangled chuffing noise coming from Ylva, which I had learned was her version of laughter.

Something about my actions had caused the wolf to still and I was able to stretch my senses into its, or rather, as I quickly noticed, his, body. What I found made me elicit an angry growl, this wolf should have been the first to treat but I had missed it because the stupid wolf had been on his paws, not lying in the snow, writhing in pain, as he should have. He had a ragged gash in his abdomen, deep enough to soak his gorgeous silver-fur in blood and - the real problem - perforate his intestines, causing all kinds of nasty fluids to poison his flesh.

Muttering under my breath, I pushed the surprised wolf over, so that I could get to the wound, drawing runes around it. After a second of contemplation, I used seven runes, not just to stop the wolf from bleeding out, but I needed to restore some of his vitality directly.

“That won’t be enough.” Lenore reminded me in the back of my mind, and after taking another look, I had to agree. The gastric fluids were spread out too far, it would take more power than I had to simply regenerate the whole area, especially combined with the expenditure of preventing the strain on the wolf’s system from killing him in the process.

“Can you hold the healing-spell?” I asked Lenore, considering my options. She agreed and I felt her power take over some of the burden, even if she had to take care that the Death-Magic inherent to our joint casting wouldn’t harm the wolf. With the burden lightened, I was able to use the direct contact to gain control over some of the wolf’s blood in the area, carefully gathering the poison and the afflicted blood in one area, gently siphoning off the vitality within the blood to use in the casting before causing the disgusting filth to exit from his wound, splashing into the nearby snow.

I felt Lenore channel a little more power into the healing-spell, letting it do its job, but after a moment, there was still more poisoning inside, so I repeated my actions, until after the third round of cleansing and healing, there was nothing left to cleanse and the wound regenerated to the point that the wolf would heal on his own, if given some time to heal.

Seeing that I had done what was necessary, I stood, looking for the next wounded wolf to heal, only to realise that the situation was a little tense. The others had gathered around me in a defensive position and the wolves looked torn between trying to attack us and retreat with their wounded.

“Ylva, talk to them, they called for help. I will heal their wounded, if any are as bad as this one, we can’t lose any more time.” I ordered, without taking my eyes from the wolves, trying to assess which needed healing the most. My previous patient gave a soft, wordless growl, trying to stand. Knowing that, while I had healed the worst of his wounds, he was far from hale, I growled again.

“Stay down, fool. If you make even more work for me, I’ll have your pelt.” I grumbled, before moving to the next wolf. Miraculously, the wolf ceased his attempts to get up, instead resting in the snow. For some reason, the interaction defused the situation and the wolves no longer looked about to attack, even though they still stood around us.

Having finished my assessment, I walked to the next wolf ordering it to lie down so I could get to its wound. To my surprise, it did just that, no growling, no posturing, nothing, it simply went down and allowed me access to the gash in its flank. Compared to the wound of the other wolf, it was harmless, it might even heal on its own, given enough time. The wolf would likely never be able to run at full speed again if it did, but the wound would not kill the wolf. Again, I merely did what was necessary to keep the wound from making long-term problems, and moved on to the next wolf.

Soon, I stood from the last wounded wolf, almost falling over as the exhaustion finally caught up to me. At first, the others had walked with me as I treated the wolves, but after the second or third, Ylva had returned to the one I had treated first and I had heard them exchange a few words, or growls, in their language. If I focused, I was able to understand it, but I was too focused on the healing to process anyone talking, no matter the language.

“Easy, love.” Sigmir caught me, as I staggered. “You did a lot of good. Ylva said the leader of this pack wants to talk to us.”

My mind was a little fuzzy, first the long day of travel, then running towards the pack, the fight and finally the exhaustive, magical healing, it made for an exhausted Morgana. On a whim, I decided that I was not willing to walk another step, so I placed my arms around Sigmir’s neck, softly telling her to carry me. She giggled a little at that, but happily picked me up one armed, making me realise that she was able to place her hand under my thighs, allowing my back to rest against her arm, almost in a one-armed princess carry. It was surprisingly comfortable, I just had to hold onto her and got where we wanted to go while cuddling with Sigmir. Maybe I should have her carry me more often.

“Morgana, Sigmir, meet…” Ylva made a rumbling growl that was impossible to translate into a language I spoke. Thanks to Lenore I knew what was meant, but it was another name that contained allusions to smells, specific sounds, parentage and a few other concepts.

“They can call me Swiftstride.” the wolf added, apparently aware that their naming just didn’t work in other languages.

Sigmir nodded, “Greetings, Swiftstride. As you likely know, I’m Sigmir and this is my mate, Morgana, a Traveller. The other two are Adra, hailing from a distant grove and Rai, Morgana’s disciple.”

Somehow, hearing Sigmir describe me as her mate made me all giddy inside and I wanted nothing more than to be back in our igloo, continuing what we had began before the howling had interrupted us.

“I thank you for aiding us, the Pack of the North Wind is in your debt.” the wolf solemnly said, this time using a name we could use at the start, not just the amalgamation of concepts used in the wolf’s native language.

“I would like to invite you into our main-den, you can rest there.” he continued and I felt my gamer-senses tingling that had the makings of an introduction to a secret faction.

“We would be honoured to see your den.” Sigmir told the wolf, after I nodded my assent. It would also allow me to finish healing the other wolves, so that there would be no complications in the future.

A blue window opened, reminding me that I had to look through the notifications and telling me that we had accepted a quest to escort the wolves to their den. Somehow, the term ‘escort’ did not fill me with confidence.